This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived, implemented or described. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
There are various technologies currently available to provide traffic information. For example, the Traffic Message Channel (TMC) is a technology for broadcasting traffic and travel information to motor vehicle drivers. It is digitally coded, using the Radio Data System (RDS) on conventional FM radio broadcasts. It can also be transmitted on Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) or satellite radio. It should be noted that the broadcast RDS-TMC code is not globally unique and that broadcast uniqueness is only required regionally. The combination of Country Code, Table Number, and TMC Location Code is unique globally. An example of another technology is one known as the Transport Protocol Experts Group (TPEG) that was designed for the transmission of language independent multi-modal traffic and travel information.
A traffic congestion jam may occur and begin accumulating as a result of any of a number of occurrences, such as traffic volume exceeding available road capacity, a traffic accident, normal rush hour traffic flow on a specific road segment and as a result some scheduled public event such as a major sporting event. In general, conventional traffic service providers are able, based on multiple input resources, to report real time static traffic incidents/conditions on a specific road segment and send, if appropriate, warning messages to drivers driving upstream (towards) such incidents. However, this type of conventional operation is not sufficient to fully apprise an end user of actual, real-time road traffic conditions so that the end user can make a most effective driving decision.